The most notorious place in Albania

Albanian Mafia

The Albanian Mafia (AM) or Albanian Organized Crime (AOC) are the general terms used for various criminal organizations based inAlbania or composed of ethnic Albanians. Albanian criminals are significantly active in the United States and the European Union (EU) countries, participating in a diverse range of criminal enterprises including drug and arms trafficking. Although the term “mafia” is often used as a description, it does not imply that all Albanian criminal activities are coordinated or regulated by an overarching governing body headquartered in Albania proper, Kosovo, Republic of Macedonia or elsewhere.

The Kosovo War played a key role in the rise of the Albanian mafia throughout Europe. Traditionally, heroin had been transported to Western Europe from Turkey via Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia. This route had closed as a result of the war and Albanian gangs found themselves in an ideal position to guarantee safe routes through the war zone, at first only assisting other criminal groups but eventually growing powerful enough to take over on their own. A key base of operations was Veliki Trnovac in southern Serbia, which quickly gave it the nickname the “Medellín of the Balkans”. Once the war had reached Kosovo proper, ethnic Albanians were added to the list of nationals qualifying for ‘refugee’ status. Since it was impossible to tell Kosovar Albanians from the rest, gangsters took advantage of the situation and spread quickly throughout Europe, first going to Albanian communities in Germany and Switzerland and taking over the heroin trade there.

Albanian-American criminals are said by police to be involved in everything from gun-running to counterfeiting. But it is drug trafficking that has gained Albanian organized crime the most notoriety. Some Albanians, according to federal Drug Enforcement Agency officials, are key traders in the “Balkan connection,” the Istanbul-to-Belgrade heroin route. DEA officials estimated that, while less well known than the so-called Sicilian and French connections, the Balkan route might have been moving, around 1985, 25% to 40% of the U.S. heroin supply.

Relationship with the KLA

The nature of the relationship between the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and Albanian organized crime has been a controversial subject. During the 1990s the KLA was viewed by many, including top US government personnel, as a freedom fighting organization struggling for the rights of ethnic Albanians, while others claimed that the KLA was a terrorist group financed and guided by the United States. For example, Senator Joe Lieberman said regarding the KLA: “The United States and the Kosovo Liberation Army stand for the same values and principles… fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values.” In 1999 the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee accentuated widespread allegations of the KLA’s criminal connections, claiming that a “major portion of the KLA finances are derived from [criminal] networks, mainly proceeds from drug trafficking.”

Myth or reality?

Belgian police acknowledge that “although Albanian organised crime has been highly publicised in the last decade, there has been very limited scientific research explaining systematically and rigorously the phenomenon.Only a very limited number of studies have tackled certain aspects of ethnic Albanian criminality in a methodical manner. However, even those studies rely too extensively on sensational media reports. This has obscured serious research still further. Hence, in general, existing scholarly research appears to be fragmented, outdated, and sometimes unreliable”.

In the latest report of the United Nations, it is said that the “Balkans are safer than western Europe” and that “At present, the levels of crime against people and property are lower than elsewhere in Europe”.

Steering clear of the south, where the Italian mafia is firmly in command, the Albanians are targeting affluent central and northern areas like Lombardy, Piedmont and Tuscany. Along with the Russian mafia, Nigerian gangsters and the Chinese triads, they are redrawing Italy’s criminal map. However instead of choosing to fight over control with Italian criminal organizations, Albanian mobsters have opted to cooperate in mutual interests instead.

One of Italy’s top prosecutors, Cataldo Motta, who has identified Albania’s most dangerous mobsters, says they are a threat to Western society.

“Albanian organised crime has become a point of reference for all criminal activity today. Everything passes via the Albanians. The road for drugs and arms and people, meaning illegal immigrants destined for Europe, is in Albanian hands.”

When the prosecutor leaves his office, three police bodyguards are at his side because of the risk of assassination by Albanian gangsters.

“The Albanian criminals were special from the beginning,” said Francesca Marcelli, an organized-crime investigator for the Italian government. “When they started appearing here in 1993, they were much different than other immigrants. They have strong motivations and are very violent.”

Activity in the United States

In the United States, Albanian gangs started to be active in the mid-80s, mostly participating in low-level crimes such as burglaries and robberies. Later, they would become affiliated with Cosa Nostra crime families before eventually growing strong enough to operate their own organizations.[9] Albanian organized crime has created new and unique problems for law-enforcement officers around the country, even threatening to displace La Cosa Nostra (LCN) families as kingpins of U.S. crime, according to FBI officials.

Speaking anonymously for Philadelphia’s City Paper a member of the “Kielbasa Posse”, an ethnic Polish mob group, declared in 2002 that Poles are willing to do business with “just about anybody. Dominicans. Blacks. Italians. Asian street gangs. Russians. But they won’t go near the Albanian mob. The Albanians are too violent and too unpredictable.”[11] The Polish mob has told its associates that the Albanians are like the early Sicilian Mafia — clannish, secretive, hypersensitive to any kind of insult and too quick to use violence for the sake of vengeance.

The Rudaj Organization, also called “The Corporation”, was a well known Albanian criminal organization operating in the New York City metro area.

Activity in the United Kingdom

Albanian mafia gangs are believed to be largely behind sex trafficking, immigrants smuggling, as well as competing with Turkish gangs over the heroin trade in the United Kingdom.

Vice squad officers estimate that “Albanians now control more than 75 per cent of the country’s brothels and their operations in London’s Soho alone are worth more than £15 million a year.” They are said to be present in every big city in Britain as well as many smaller ones including Telford and Lancaster, after having fought off rival criminals in turf wars.

Albanian gangsters were also involved in the largest cash robbery in British crime history, the £53 million (about US$92.5 million at the time of the robbery) Securitas heist.

Activity in Belgium

According to the Belgian police department specialized for Albanian organized crime, Albanian mafia clans dominate, leading in the illegal trade, including human trafficking and the sale of cocaine and heroin. The Albanian gangs are spread throughout Europe, police says, adding that Albanian brutality and networks of prostitution rings have made them notorious and dominant in human trafficking in the West.

Belgium is regarded as one of the most important countries for human traffickers, being the last port before entry into Great Britain, and considered the “El Dorado of illegal immigration”.

It is estimated that up to 100,000 illegal immigrants have been transferred to Belgium by Albanians, while some observers warn that this number represents the illegal immigrants in Brussels alone.

Activity in Scandinavia

Albanian mafia clans in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are suspected of being involved in arms smuggling, prostitution, heroin smuggling and armed robberies such as the $10 million heist in Norway’s central bank in 2004.

“The ethnic Albanian mafia is very powerful and extremely violent,” said Kim Kliver, chief investigator for organized crime with the Danish National Police. “If you compare them to the Italian Mafia, the Albanians are stronger and not afraid of killing.” Law enforcement authorities estimate that even a small Albanian gang may smuggle as much as 440 pounds of heroin a year into Scandinavia.

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41 thoughts on “Albanian Mafia”

Your allegations (also Dick Marty’s) are fake… the only people who had means and potential to do organ harvesting, were serbs with Arkan and Seselj criminal gangs. I was in Croatia and in Kosovo, and I know well what I am saying! Stop presenting serbs as lambs, and your victims as wolfs: Vukovar, Srebrenica, Zagreb bombing, Foca, Kosovo terror by serbs during 1998-99 will be never forgotten.

This coming from a shkavell a.k.a serb
You guys are cannibalistic animals and you blame Kosova and Albanians for the hole in which Serbia is currently in. Poor shkavells. Your goal of killing children and women was cut short by U.S. and UK.
Jebem ti sve zivo i mrtvo 🙂

donald shtjefni said that if there were no criminals then we would not know what is crime. An other guy at the end mentioned if the source of this article is by a serbian journalist. I this thing what matters more than the rest or that behind every major crime in every west european city where there is a significant number of albanians, there is always one Albanian who does it. As I have read before in UK the Albanians control the brothels and in the article one figure of the albanian underworld was feeling really proud for this thing. Further more Albanians were behind the largest robbery in UK history. Why all this should happen? Why should they make our lives hard? Some of them hit the big fish but some of them will cause you troubles at the street because their nature is a nature of a criminal. They attack in packs they pretend to be the best they humiliate you. Why all this? Because they feel inferior? Why should we tolerate them in our own countries when they are guests and they have to behave. Does anyone of you behaves badly when he visits an other house as guest? Why should we tolerate with them. Why UK didn’t investigate deep who came from Kossovo and what was his past? And if they do serious crimes there then why do you have to keep them and not to deport them?UK is a serious strong country with laws and authorities that function perfectly. If you know that they control the brothels in London why dont you try to find the leaders and to send them back to Albania? Why? We pay the taxes to the state to feel safety and protection inside the country. Why we have to face theese people? And when we try to defend our beliefs and our principals about our country and our selves against them they call us racists? Why? In situations like this new ‘Hitlers’ are raised and fascists gain power. Someday the natives will fed up and they will try to protect their self in ways that won’t be that legal. In Greece because Iam Greek we have serious problem with them. Many Greek men make weapon licences nowday to protect their homes and their families and their property by some people like theese Albanians. Why all this should happen? Why should we be afraid in our own countries? In our own homes when these people feel proud to destroy to kill to rape to steal and to enjoy many benefits?Why because there are not any people to do the hard work? Keep the immigrants and the albanians who are necessary and they don’t cause troubles to the society and kick the rest back. Someone who will do something like this he will be praised by his country fellowmen.

You sound a plain bigoted racist. But I should not be surprised, you have burned Albanian flags in Football matches showing how small minded and inferior you are. To say ALL Albanians are criminals or with a mind-set like that, would be like saying all Greeks are Racist and who fleeced EU of the money and burned billions of euros, while giving one job to 10 people and paying them all, that is why you are not able to afford anything no more…….You cannot generalise, the crime does not get transported, you had and started use of drugs yourself and then blame it on Albanians……prostitution was in the West since the French revolution and you have the courage to blame it on Albanians……..Why don’t you write here about your government that is trying to get land from South of Albania as it still believes those belong to Greece. How about the crimes you have committed in the 1912, all documented my little friend. Your greek problem is you still have no idea who your grandfathers are as you have no links to the old Greece at all. As I said, prostitution and the most lurid things in the world were in your country already we did not bring them to you(facts and history cannot be changed) and all the decadence and degener

What the fuck are you guys talking about Albania are hard working ppl the rest of Albania were mafia but only mafia because they were driven to do crime by the motherfucker Greeks and Serbs. If you have a decent brain you would know.

Nobody cannot colonize Evropa!& Evropa is Albania! – To the Greek guy:
1.It felt good when Arvanites liberated you from the Turks and then after you try to assimilate them by trying to prohibit the language of Arvanitika?
2. Did you also liked when the Great Powers gave you Chameria as a present in 1913 and after in 1945 you expelled and did a Genocide towards the Chams?
3.Did you enjoy your times when poor Albanian immigrants worked for your ass in 1990-s for only 2$ a day and you stayed like a lazy f*ck without doing anything at all, taking advantage of the fact the Greece was in EU an Albania was not ?
4. What Did you do when Greek thugs killed Albanian students only because they were proudly wearing an Albanian flag t-shirt?
5. Servs played the victims too but no matter what the truth prevailed, why are acting no different from the Servs-is it because they are your Slavic Orthodox Brothers, well Macedonains are no different?

FYI , I m not justifying none of the crimes committed by people who are involved in the mob, but I am against generalizations and the cowardly behavior of some fake European wannabes.

Dick Martin has been working for years in this case but he denied to show up in court together with Del Ponte because none of their claims were based on true facts, but only hypothesis-they had no proves. they were theories constructed on the base of the imagination fabricated inside the Orthodox church of the East-Beograd/Kremlin/Athens.

Servs criminals of the Yugoslavia wars are in power now and they were accomplices of Slobodan Milloshevic during the ethnic cleansing he did. These are the criminals who you should worry about and better stop prosecuting the poor Albanian villagers in Burrel just because you want to claim something that does not exist.

you can definitely tell a fucking greek cunt wrote that big paragraph lmfao. Get off your high horse greek people are the most power hungry arrogant people in the world. The most racist, and the most proud. You think you’re better than everyone, don’t judge albanians you are NO better.

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Hi everybody i’m a albanian, i just want to say to the comment of the people her that are talking bullshit you do now nothing about albanian mafia. we are not a rich country everyone knows that. But we are fuck for life in the head you know why cuse albania and kosovo the presidents and ministers and cops they are al currupt and do mafia bizness they are the first problem they are so seak you can not imagine this what happens in albania and kosovo in this day? 2012 in europe what the fuck that’s not normally. they are not human they are animals they will eat you alive for money the do everything for money the cut childerens and fammilies organs out and a lot of things read about the yellow house you people do now nothing the people from the highest level from united states of america and england and germany en italia en sicily and columbia politicians ask them about albanians the gonna tell you that we are put in this world just to do killing maffia drug organs herion prostitution everybody nows us the cosa nostra fammilly in u.s. JUST EVERYBODY cause we are seak people we got a big historry the jews from israel and america nows about oure history they nog how dangerous we are nobody can’t imagine this. so for you serbs go fuck yourselfs cause when you guys had war whit kosovo you fucking pussy’s you just killed the old people and children en womens you fucking bitchez but nog your fucked cause you never can be stronger and dangerous than a albanian that’s is a fact and that nows all the wolrd you can not fuck whit us cause in the end you always will loose we never give up that’s like this motherfuckers. you are stuppid people that talks bullshit and do now nothing really stupid.

I heard that none of this was true and all the suspects are out.
I also heard that Del Ponte and is being accused for falsification and she will go in trial soon enough.
She will not be allowed to follow up with the Syrian cases. the lawyers asked her resignation from the post.

Bloody Albanian murderers. That’s not even the 1% of what they’ve done. They were worse than their NAZI ally back in WW II… The mankind will face with such a pathological hatred, with the case of so monstrous murdering of the Orthodox native in Kosovo, that the whole planet will be shocked.
If the American (part of Albanian corpus in America) who is to examine the case only let it appear.
But even if they hide it, it will appear. Too many of people know, have seen, are sill alive.

Are you fucken retarded huh? When i read this post i looked up the definition of idiot and i found your name in it. Who the fuck pissed in your cheerios you dumb ass. Albania was fucken awarded a gold medal for keeping the most Jews alive dumb fuck. Here is a good example everybody of someone that’s been born on a fucken Serb highway, you know how you can tell? Because most of the accidents occur there. Fucked up thing! Trying to implement religion in the context. Religion to Albanians doent mean shit! The only thing we care about is our culture SHQIPTAR ILLYRIAN PALESG. So you should fucken leave this chat now cus i just fucken wrecked you, not just that but your shit hole just called they want you back by 6. If you want proof here ill feed you it. And by the way i hope your not dumb enough do fight back against this.

Thank you for exposing these fact, but the truth is much more darker and worse than this. Albanian and USA have made the most monstrous crimes in history. This is only the top of it, but somewhere it has to start. Waiting for the day when all their monstrousness will finally get exposed, and poor Serbian victims and martyrs buried and finally rest in peace.

I swear you guys are all stupid people who believe one dumb ass post. Only 20-30% of Albanians are in the mafia and gangs, the rest are hard working, respectful people, you guys don’t know how much Albanians have suffered, they were pushed into doing all this crime shit, if fucking Serbia, Greece and the rest of the world didn’t treat them like they did, then they wouldn’t have to do these crimes

. Albanian and USA have made the most monstrous crimes in history.. and poor Serbian victims and martyrs buried and finally rest in peace…. ARE YOU FU***NG SERIOUS …. SERBIAN KILLED MILLIONS IN BOSNIA CROATIA KOSOVO..THEY KILLED CHILDREN PREGNANT WOMEN…HOW THE F**K CAN YOU TALK LIKE THIS WITHOUT KNOWING ANYTHING…

i’am not saying that albanians are the best people in the world. but we are alot more human then you serbs … as for criminal things yes we do all those things like everywhere in the hole world.we are nor the first to do crime and not the last but that doesnt mean that all albanians are criminals, we were close till 1990 so who did crime all that time in your contrys ? you did. then we came along lerning from you asociating with your contry men. we are 3.5 million so dont say all 3.5 milion are criminals. but thats like everywhere in the world those things hapen . i know this are not good things to do. as for USA just dont need to talk about .their guvernament the most monsters in this world they begin the war everywhere where they have a litle interest killing millions of people for petrol etc..

Lisa, you are wrong you just haven’t met the right Albanians. Well we’re not that nice, but if you are nice to us and respect us we will return that double! If you do the opposite and you’re a dick to us, than we’ll do that same thing to you triple, lol

Hi,what are you talking??Have you hearned for Gingich ,Serbian prime minister,Jovani Falcone Italian persecutor ,who killed them?? Albanian mafia?? Noon..There was the oldest mafia In history Italian and Serbian mafia .so wat you talking about? And this stupid Greeks forget about their terrorist group “17 January” .?? What the he’ll is wrong with you people ,you thing people believe in your stupidity? really?.

I will say a few things differently. Historically we Albanians are known as brave, freedom fighters, loyal and honest with their friends and guests. We never turned our back to the enemies, and we never killed somebody behind our backs. Albanians did not invade Serbia, Serbia invaded them. Kosovars never used suicide bombs or soft target killings in Belgrade or somewhere else in Yugoslavia. They killed those people who came to their houses, who treated them like animals, who raped their women and killed their kids. Historically Roman Empire and Turkish Empire have trusted the Albanians with their highest military duties as the best trusted and loyal soldiers of their empires, read the history who ever wants to know the truth. As far as mafia, it was not born in Albania. It is part of western loose democratic policies, and bad work of law enforcement which most of time is corrupted and collaborates with mafia. If Albanians have taken control, this is a superiority not an inferiority, even I do not agree with the mafia killings. For the greatest theft I do not comment badly, you need guts, bravery and intelligence to do those things. I live for more 20 years in US and I see that we Albanians are hard working and freedom lovers like many others. My best friends in America are Greeks and Serbs. We as people have been and still are good to each other. Politics, governments and regimes have damaged what peoples instinctively have harvested for years. We love Greek people, we love Serbian people and all other surrounding people that have the same feelings towards us.

albanians are closer to southern italians than probably any other nationality, in part there is a lot of influence from the arbereshe population. I’ve seen many albanians act much the same way in terms of familial ties, Omerta’s and secret codes amongst blood relatives. the one thing that they have most in common is the hypersensiteveness, a lot of southern italians are quick to jump to arguments that can turn ugly..